Zitat des Tages über Bestseller, Verkaufsschlager, Spitzenreiter / Bestseller:
For 'The Bestseller'... there was hardly any research, but I had to give each person a quirk and develop their stories so that it would relate to who they are.
There has always been interest in certain phases and aspects of history - military history is a perennial bestseller, the Civil War, that sort of thing. But I think that there is a lot of interest in historical biography and what's generally called narrative history: history as story-telling.
There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.
When I wrote 'The Rozabal Line,' I had no preconceived notions of what a commercial bestseller should be. I have always viewed 'The Rozabal Line' as my first love and probably my best work. The fact, however, is that it is my least read work.
'Bag of Bones' was a big, distorted yet wonderfully entertaining novel that rode high on the bestseller lists in 1998.
Writing itself is a dream. There are days of self doubt and deadlines and wondering how you're going to pay the bills until you write that bestseller. But it's still the best job I've ever had. I've also been able to help a lot of people and even inspire a few and that feels great.
Anyway, several rewrites later, Del Rey Books did publish my first novel, and it did become the first work of fiction on the New York Times trade paperback bestseller list.
The bestseller charts, a sure indicator of public taste, tell us with relentless frequency that Marian Keyes or Jeffrey Archer is a better author, by some dizzying six-figure sum, both in numbers of copies and money, than, say, J. M. Coetzee or Patrick White. Are they right?
You can look at the New York Times Bestseller List and you can be pretty sure that the writers on that list don't know each other very well.
B is for bestseller.
Peter Breggin, an American psychiatrist, had been criticising SSRIs since the early 1990s. He wrote 'Talking Back to Prozac' (1995) to repudiate psychiatrist Peter Kramer's 'Listening to Prozac' (1993) - a bestseller which claimed that Prozac made patients 'better than well.'
If you write chick lit, and if you're a New Yorker, and if your book becomes the topic of pop-culture fascination, the paper might make dismissive and ignorant mention of your book. If you write romance, forget about it. You'll be lucky if they spell your name right on the bestseller list.
I've been bragging for over 25 years that my first New York Times bestseller was a book I copied from the U.S. Government Printing Office!
I never set out to do this - getting to No. 1 in the 'New York Times' bestseller list wasn't even a pipedream.
I don't write huge books any more. I used to write 1,000 printed pages, but now I write short books. I did one on Napoleon, 50,000 words - enjoyed doing that. He was a baddie. I did one on Churchill, which was a bestseller in New York, I'm glad to say. 50,000 words. He was a goodie.
'The Mortal Instruments' is based on a series of novels by Cassandra Clare; it has been a New York Times bestseller, so it is pretty popular.
I was never confident about finishing a book, but friends encouraged me. When I finished my first book, it was accepted by a publisher right away and became an instant bestseller. One male critic called it the most shocking book he ever read.
We partner with movies that stand for more than the latest bestseller.
Jerry and I hoped that it would be a popular bestseller.
Beyond that, I seem to be compelled to write science fiction, rather than fantasy or mysteries or some other genre more likely to climb onto bestseller lists even though I enjoy reading a wide variety of literature, both fiction and nonfiction.
Most important of all, there is no right or wrong way to write - there's only what works for you. I was taught to write every day, but I know a writer (a bestseller at that!) who only writes on weekends.
I'm not going to give it the big 'I am' now that I'm a New York Times bestseller.
The business model - where books can be returned, and where a 50% sell-through is considered acceptable - is archaic and wasteful. Writers get small royalties, little say in how their books are marketed and sold, and simple things like cover and title approval are unheard of unless you're a huge bestseller.
When 'Catch Me If You Can' was published back in 1980, I never dreamed that it would become a bestseller, much less a major motion picture and now a big Broadway musical. What's amazing about the book is that it has never gone out of print.
When 'Twilight' hit the New York Times bestseller list at number 5, for me that was the pinnacle, that was the moment. I never thought I would be there. And I keep having moments like that where you just stop and say, wait a minute - how is this still going up? I'm waiting for the rug to be pulled out from under me.
I had a history for starting something and maybe getting halfway done. Then I'd see the same thing I was doing on the bestseller list! My ideas were right, but I hadn't done them fast enough.
I know the bestseller 'Gone Girl' doesn't need an ounce of support from me, but that book was as sharp and witty as they come.
The New York Times Bestseller 'The Amateur,' written by Ed Klein, former editor of the 'New York Times Magazine,' is one of the best books I've read.